Ok, they said I’m allowed to write about Zynga’s Mafia Wars on Facebook so that’s what I’m going to do. Yes, there was a rant about it on We Work For Cheese earlier this month, but I’ll be offering some hints and tips on the game. Do you want cheats for Mafia Wars? If you do, you can probably find them somewhere else.

What is it?

Zynga are the makers of YoVille, Cafe World, Street Racing and Farmville. And yes, Mafia Wars, which you can play on Facebook. It’s highly addictive and sucks you in until your life is destroyed. You may not be selling your car for Godfather Points, but you might alienate your family and friends while you level up and ice and whack rival mobsters. Unlike Evony, Mafia Wars is simple and easy to get into. Evony requires some more strategy as a Fantasy MMORPG, similar to Civilization. Enough. On to Mafia Wars!

How do you play?

You join the game through Facebook, and you begin. Mafia Wars is like any RPG or MMORPG: You start off with a character, and you build on their skills. As you play and gain experience, your character gets stronger, you collect more weapons and loot, and you move up through the ranks. Pretty simple, right?

So Why Is It So addictive?

That’s the nature of RPG’s. In order to do more advanced jobs in Mafia wars, you need to do the easier jobs first. Naturally, you want to see what’s up ahead, so you play for a little while in order to get there. Before you know it, Zynga is teasing you with the promise of new weapons, new loot, and new jobs to do. Before you know it, you’re using every spare moment to take out a couple of enemies just for a few measly experience points. Each subsequent level requires more experience and that’s pretty much how every RPG has worked since pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons.

Tips and Job Tiers

New York – New York offers 9 tiers of jobs. They can take quite awhile to do, so don’t expect to complete them before level 175 or so. You’ll need TONS of special loot, like Illegal Transaction Records, Blackmail Photos and Untraceable Cell Phones. But don’t despair, you’ll get there eventually.

Cuba – Not so long ago, Zynga added Cuba and a whole new set of jobs to do. It’s just like New York, except the jobs and the loot are Cuban themed. Again, to complete all 6 job tiers, you need to be persistent and play. And play. And keep playing.

Early on in the game, it’s important to put a lot of skill points into Defense. Once you get up to around 500 defense points, I’d recommend putting more skill points into Energy. As you advance levels, you’ll need more and more energy to level up. Plus, coupled with an Energy Pack, you’ll level up faster.

The Hitlist

So much has been said about the hitlist, but in the end, you want to be there. You’ll get attacked, lose some money, lose a negligible amount of experience, but in the end, you’ll gain more than you lose. The catch is that you need to keep playing to collect better loot to get stronger if you want it to be worthwhile.

Collections

Vaulting an entire collection gives you a good bonus, whether it’s energy, stamina, or health. What can I say? Do your jobs and get your Fidel beard. You can find it in the El Padrino tier.

Achievements

There are now 39 Achievements. The bonus is actually not really worth the trouble, but you’ll get them eventually as you get stronger. Plus it’s neat to see all the pretty pictures in an ‘active’ state once you’ve earned them.

The Bank

The best advice I can offer here is DON’T USE THE BANK. Yep. I stopped using it once I hit level 120 or so. Once you’ve started earing over 100 million an hour, it’s just not worth paying the 10% laundering fee. You’ll lose a $100,000 or so when you lose a fight, but in the long run, you’ll be earning waayyyyy more than that with your…

Properties

Buying properties = earning money. The only point in buying properties is to eventually earn enough $ to earn the 999 Trillion Dollar deposit achievement. Otherwise, you’ll earn enough money from jobs to buy any weapons or armor that you may need.

Future Expansions

So what’s next? Well, with the Cuba expansion, the door is wide open for different job tiers in other ‘exotic locales’. At the moment, Mafia Wars might actually be a little bit overwhelming for some. As if New York didn’t take long enough to complete, committing to Cuba means many more months of playing.

Right now, Zynga is no doubt gearing up for a third major expansion, and mark my words, that will likely be Mafia Wars Russia. The hint is in the last available job in the El Cacique tier: Meet With “The Russian”. Sounds like a dead giveaway to me, but if I’m wrong, you can still fire me.

Update – The next Mafia Wars Expansion will be Mafia Wars Moscow, so I was pretty close. Phew. I still have a job. Future expansions will include Bangkok, Paris and ‘Western U.S.’, which likely means Las Vegas, or Los Angeles (L.A.).

Update II – If you’d like a little workaround to getting the Money Laundering collection, you can use this link to publish your money laundering request to your home page. Make sure you’re in the New York tier when you click the link:

Update III - How to get a passport: By the way, if you’re looking for a passport for Bangkok, you’ll need to ask for one. Everyone invited to the Beta gets four (4) passports and can send them to friends as gifts

Update IV – Achievements in Bangkok: When you fight against either the Yakuza or Triad factions, your status will increase with one, but decrease against the other. Now there are 3 new achievements related to this: Dead or Alive, Hard Boiled, and Bangkok Dangerous. You only need to concentrate on Bangkok Dangerous which is to gain Allied Status in both factions at the same time. Here’s a tip on how to get it:

When fighting, alternate your attacks between Yakuza and Triad. Since each attack is based on the simple formula of +2 points for the attacker and -1 point for the defender, simply alternate your faction attacks and your status will increase in parallel with both factions. Eventually, you’ll hit Allied Status for both Yakuza and Triad, at the same time. Hence, you’ll get all three achievements around the same time.

http://nurussadad.web.id nurussadad

yeps..
i have played that game for six month..
that’s very addictive game…

cannibal

waz up with the new updates? what is the difference between an iced guy or a whacked one????

mike

‘Iced’ means that you’ve attacked your opponent to the point where they’re too weak to fight.

When your opponent is ‘Whacked’, they be dead.

Misbehaver

On tagged mafia wars there is a glitch that they replied to me they are working on 1/12/2010, when you finish all 3 job tiers on all the jobs in Cuba as well as fully update all businesses, Russia never opens up. This blows really bad. All they say in an email reply is they are working on it and invite you to start all over on facebook, no way I’m starting all over in NY. Anyone heard anything else about this.

Burgos

you don't earn money from properties anymore

http://www.weworkforcheese.com Mike

You still kind of do, but not in the same way. That said, MW is not really as fun as it used to be. They're over saturated the game with too many features.

EKreuz

What do you need to do in order to finish the new York level? I received for stars in all levels but don’t know how top start the Cuban level